Ace 250 settings around playground equipment

[Freddy5001]

Hi Everyone, I really enjoy all the posts. I'm pretty new to metal detecting and I have a question about using my Ace 250 around playground equipment. It seems every park I go to has metal playground equipment - what setting should I use on my Ace 250. I keep picking up the equipment and not much else. I usually have the sensitivity on 6 or 7, and I use the all metal mode. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[treasurefiend]

I have an Ace 250 and use the 9x12 coil all of the time. With the large coil most people think that is harder to sweep around other metal targets, I have only used this coil so I am used to it. Oh yea, I am almost all of the time hunting in "coin mode".

I notice that if I turn the sensitivity down to 1 or 3 bars I will only hear 1 beep for the metal play equipment. If a coin is there, then I would hear 2 beeps. I don't know if that makes any sense. I would suggest testing it out. Sweep by a post at a park, notice the signal and sound, and amounts of beeps just in 1 direction. then place a coin by the post and do the same thing again, I am able to detect up next to the post and still find the coins.

Like I said, I still get the beep for the post and most of the time its a dime signal. But it is only a 1 way beep. If a coin is there it will give a good repeatable beep when you do a tight back and forth sweep when you hear the initial beep.

Tight back and forth sweep. Meaning when you sweep from side to side (large sweep), when you get a beep you focus over the beep to try to get a repeatable signal.

In tot lots and school playgrounds, I usually am running in the very low sensitivity range. Lots of garbage and in bark-chips you wont need to dig that deep for stuff. And not to mention the playground equipment will interfere with your detector.

Just keep practicing with your Ace, its an awesome machine and it will lead you to a lot of treasure!!! I hope this helps, it works great for me.

 

[sandcrab]

I personally have never ran my 250 above 5 on sensitivity, if falses out too much and just raises a racket in my headphones. I generally run at 2-4 on sensitivity in Coins mode or my Custom profile which I have set pretty close to the Coins profile. In playgrounds I run my Sniper Coil, it pretty well ignores the metal poles since it shoots a rather narrow beam straight down (and up to tell the truth) if I get really close to the pole and the sensitivity is high I get the occasional beep from the poles as TreasureFiend said but it is easy to interpret and listen for the tones, headphones help a lot, make sure if you get some 'phones that they have a volume control. The lack of a volume control is my only complaint about this machine, I guess they wanted to totally eliminate all of the sand, dirt, and water entry points so common with knobs on detectors. Happy Hunting! Post your finds, this is one place bragging is socially acceptable.

 

[slingshot]

Yeah, and just using the front tip of the coil helps, too. Using the sides of the coil presents too much coil area to the equipment and you can get a little closer with just the tip and lower sens.

 

[khouse]

With the stock coil run your sens at 1 bar when your 12 inches or closer to the poles. Sweep real real slow. As you get farther away from the poles increase the sens and sweep speed. With the sniper I run 1 to 2 bars of sens and sweep slow next to the poles too. Then I crank the sens up as I move away from the poles. You can pull the mulch and/or pea gravel away from the poles with your boot and sweep the mulch then kick it back around the poles too.

 

[Uncle Willy]

Go to coin mode and drop to 2 or 3 With the Sniper coil you can get closer. A trick you can try. Put your coil right up against the metal pole or whatever then yank it straight back real quick. If you here a double beep there is usually a coin there.

Bill.

 

[Freddy5001]

Thanks everyone!